Thursday, January 19, 2006

UK torture strategy: deny knowledge

"The government is secretly trying to stifle attempts by MPs to find out what it knows about CIA "torture flights" and privately admits that people captured by British forces could have been sent illegally to interrogation centres, the Guardian can reveal. A hidden strategy aimed at suppressing a debate about rendition - the US practice of transporting detainees to secret centres where they are at risk of being tortured - is revealed in a briefing paper sent by the Foreign Office to No 10."Guardian

"The document shows that the government has been aware of secret interrogation centres, despite ministers' denials. It admits that the government has no idea whether individuals seized by British troops in Iraq or Afghanistan have been sent to the secret centres.

Dated December 7 last year, the document is a note from Irfan Siddiq, of the foreign secretary's private office, to Grace Cassy in Tony Blair's office. It was obtained by the New Statesman magazine, whose latest issue is published today.

It was drawn up in response to a Downing Street request for advice "on substance and handling" of the controversy over CIA rendition flights and allegations of Britain's connivance in the practice.

"We should try to avoid getting drawn on detail", Mr Siddiq writes, "and to try to move the debate on, in as front foot a way we can, underlining all the time the strong anti-terrorist rationale for close cooperation with the US, within our legal obligations."

'avoid getting drawn on detail'. 'Move the debate on' Resell it as 'tough on terrorism' etc...

"The document advises the government to rely on a statement by Condoleezza Rice last month when the US secretary of state said America did not transport anyone to a country where it believed they would be tortured and that, "where appropriate", Washington would seek assurances.

The document notes: "We would not want to cast doubt on the principle of such government-to-government assurances, not least given our own attempts to secure these from countries to which we wish to deport their nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism: Algeria etc."

The document says that in the most common use of the term - namely, involving real risk of torture - rendition could never be legal. It also says that the US emphasised torture but not "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment", which binds Britain under the European convention on human rights. British courts have adopted a lower threshold of what constitutes torture than the US has."Guardian

Assuming memo is real, the Guardian's report confirms what we already know:

1. Invest in the worldwide torture syndicate

2. Redefine torture

3. Torture people

4. Deny torture is happening (just keep lying)

5a. Rely on the fudge about definition and intention of others like Condi Rice.

5b. Say "We completely oppose torture" but"if it accidentallywently hwappens when we accidentallywently send them to tworture regimes which we accidentallywently might not know is happening and they accidentallywently give us some infwormation then we might jwust accidentallywently use it"

6b. Promote your implicit nudge-nudge wink-wink torture programme that everyone knows is happening (but that you don't describe as torture) as 'tough on terror' to Rupert Murdoch and your placed minions like torture-fan Stephen Sackur at the BBC

6c. Sit back and enjoy the terror inflicted on your population, who know you invest in torture, and will be hopefully made scared enough to not step out of line, implying the next torture victim could be them.

7. Go about your business as if everything is perfectly normal, talking about schools, hosptials, crime etc.